


The End of My Line is You

by Jaiden_S, Kangofu_CB



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Romance, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 06:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18959662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaiden_S/pseuds/Jaiden_S, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: Bucky had been frozen and wiped a hundred times, it seemed, but this time was different. In a fleeting moment of consciousness, before the Asset took control, he managed to compartmentalize a single memory and lock it away in the depths of his mind.The man with the shield. I know him.That’s why he saved the man, pulled him from the dark water and dragged him to safety on the sandy shore. That’s why he can’t stop thinking about him.





	The End of My Line is You

**Author's Note:**

> The End of My Line is You  
> Author: Jaiden S – https://jaiden-s.tumblr.com/ Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaiden_S  
> Artist: Kangofu-cb - https://kangofu-cb.tumblr.com/ - Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/  
> Artwork link:<https://imgur.com/64Bf7M8>  
> Word Count: 5345  
> Rating: PG  
> Warnings: none  
> Characters: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson  
> Written for the Captain America Reverse Bang - https://capreversebb.tumblr.com/

The shivers always came first. It was the same every time. Bone-rattling shivers shook him back to consciousness, his teeth chattering and his legs spasming as blood began to flow to his extremities again. His brain jolted awake, then fell into chaos for a few agonizing minutes until it sorted out who and where and _what_ he was. The Asset. After the initial shock, his mind accepted it and settled into the role. It didn’t matter who he had been before. He was the Asset now.

The awakening on this particular day, however, had one difference. During those first frantic moments of discord, as his mind scrambled to make sense of a tangled knot of memories, he found a loose thread. A familiar loose thread, one he’d noticed before and tried to tug free unsuccessfully.

The man on the bridge. The man with the shield. He knew that face. The man had recognized him, too, and called him Bucky. 

In a fleeting moment of consciousness, before the Asset took control, he managed to compartmentalize a single memory and lock it away in the depths of his mind. 

_The man with the shield. I know him._

Earlier that day, he’d watched, unmoved and uncaring, as a hoard of Special Forces officers descended on the man and his friends, taking them away in a large, black van. It wasn’t until later, until he’d returned from his mission that he began to question himself, which led to him questioning Alexander Pierce. Up until then, the Asset had never questioned, only complied.

It was inevitable, both the wipe and the freeze, but this time, a thread of who he once was remained.

~*~

The Asset always complied with protocol and followed orders without question or deviation. Today, his primary mission was to ensure that Hydra implemented Project Insight successfully, no matter the cost. Stealthily, he climbed aboard the helicarrier, moving silently along the perimeter of the aircraft until he found himself right in front of his mission, the man with the shield. The man begged, pleaded with the Asset not to fight him, but the Asset would not be swayed by emotion. His orders came first. Despite the man’s initial objection, he fought the Asset and fought well, buying himself enough time to sabotage Project Insight. The Asset’s primary mission had failed. Secondary mission: stop the man with the shield.

The Asset quickly determined the most successful point of attack to take the man down and engaged, but all the while, the man spoke to him. 

“You know me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

The Asset hesitated and somewhere deep in the corner of his mind, the thread began to unravel. An image flashed. A vision of the man with the shield smiling at him, calling him Bucky. He coolly shoved it away. The Asset did not have memories.

And then, the man did something that the Asset didn’t expect: he dropped the shield. “I’m not going to fight you. You’re my friend.”

The man’s actions were illogical and gave him pause, but when the shield dropped through the bottom of the helicarrier, the Asset’s instincts took over and he re-engaged. “You’re my mission.”

Each punch the Asset landed on the man’s face and body was a step closer to successfully completing his secondary mission. As he drew back his fist back to deliver a final, devastating blow to the man’s face, the man uttered a single phrase that caused the entire spool of memories to unwind.

“Then finish it, cause I’m with ya ‘til the end of the line.”

The man with the shield. He knew him. Another memory flashed behind his wide eyes. A skinny young man in a suit two sizes too big smiling up at him like he’d just hung the moon. _I’m with ya ‘til the end of the line._

The Asset released his grip on the man just as a large piece of the aircraft hull crashed down beside them and sent them both hurtling downward toward the water. The man hit first, plunging into the icy water and sinking rapidly. The Asset followed him down, kicking his feet until he caught up with the man and the shield.

He dragged the man and his shield out of the water and left both on the sandy river shore to be found by rescuers. Who was the man? Clearly, they had known each other. The man had said they were friends. He needed to find out more. 

Protocol dictated that he return to HYDRA headquarters for debriefing. “No,” he said out loud to himself, stopping in his tracks on the edge of the water. “I’m not going back.” The Asset retreated. His mission was gone. Everything he’d known was gone. For the first time in over sixty years, he no longer had orders or the identity that had been forced on him through endless cycles of brainwashing and mind control.

All he had was himself. His feet moved of their own accord, muscle memory taking over as he crept along the banks of the river, then backtracked over his own footprints to keep from being followed. Slim branches scraped across his face, tangled in his wet hair. He swept at them carelessly, pressing on until he reached the outskirts of the city. There was no going back, only pressing forward.

~*~

The problem with free will is that there are no parameters, no guidelines or expectations or road maps to follow. He had nothing but choices, and he wasn’t used to having any. In the meantime, the survival instinct that HYDRA had drilled into him served him well. He blended into the crowd, moved among the shadows, became a ghost.

A burned out building served as home base. A thrift store yielded gently worn clothes to help him blend into polite society. Petty theft kept him from starving, but nothing satisfied his burning curiosity about his past. What was true and what wasn’t? What belonged to him and what memories been implanted or suggested by Hydra? It was a series of pictures blurred around the edges, all fuzzy snippets and hazy, fleeting images with no context or meaning that might belong to someone he used to know. 

And then there was the man with the shield. The man who claimed he knew him, who claimed they were friends. Try as he might, he couldn’t piece together anything substantial about him, only fragments and clips of memories that made little sense. Baseball games. Comic books. A small kid with skinned knees and a big smile who bore more than a passing resemblance to the man with the shield.

As luck would have it, the man’s face was plastered on billboards all over the city. He noticed one as he slipped out of a convenience store, where he’d pocketed a few candy bars. _Captain America: The Living Legend and Symbol of Courage_ exhibit was in full swing at the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space. He found some change for the bus and headed there immediately.

He slipped in behind a middle school group from South Carolina, and walked inside, gazing with wide-eyed wonder at the ten-foot-tall banners of Cap himself. He let the seventh graders swarm past him while he took his time, studying every detail of the photos of Captain America and poring over the notes left behind by the Howling Commandos and watching and re-watching film clips from WWII. If there was any doubt in his mind who he was, it fled the moment his eyes fell on a newsreel clip of himself arm-in-arm with Captain America himself, sharing a laugh over some private joke.

The man with the shield was Steve Rogers. And he was James Buchanan Barnes, Steve’s best friend. Bucky. He _was_ Bucky. Newsreels didn’t lie.

From there, Bucky’s memories began to return, triggered by the photos of himself with Steve. An image of playing catch with Steve in the backyard melted into the two of them hunkered down in a bunker, trying to avoid Nazi firefight. The sight of an apple core on the sidewalk reminded him of the apple tree in Old Man Hollman’s backyard that he used to climb, the one Steve tried to climb but couldn’t reach the lowest branch until Bucky gave him a boost up. The sound of a saxophone brought back glimmers of starlit summer nights sitting on Steve’s front stoop listening to the sounds of a swing band on the radio. The smell of disinfectant pulled out a memory of a sickly blond kid stuck in bed for the millionth day in a row, and Bucky doing anything and everything to get him to smile.

A newspaper headline caught his attention the following morning, and he nicked a copy of it to read on a nearby bench. Project Insight was in shambles. HYDRA had scattered and gone underground. Steve Rogers was still in a nearby hospital recovering from the fight. 

_Police are still searching for the man who rescued Captain Steve Rogers from the Potomac River. Though several early leads seemed promising, sources inside the the investigation say they are no closer to identifying the man than they were three days ago. Surveillance video pulled from the near crash site was inconclusive._

_Captain Rogers remains in stable condition in ICU and is expected to make a full recovery._

Bucky folded the paper and set it aside with a grimace. He had to see Steve. It was illogical and something the Asset would never have done, not in the middle of the day, not in a guarded intensive care unit, but he was going to do it anyway.

The hospital was a short bus ride away, near the center of downtown. Bucky pulled his cap down over his eyes as he stepped off of the bus and into the bright afternoon sunshine. Getting inside a hospital was easy; gaining access to Steve’s room in the intensive care unit would be harder and required a particular set of skills. Fortunately, he’d honed that particular set of skills very, very well. 

A group of nurses huddled together outside the ambulance bay at the rear of the hospital, laughing and gossiping and smoking menthol cigarettes. Bucky approached a male nurse with a look of confusion. “Hey, can you help me out? I’m starting my job with maintenance and I can’t remember where I am supposed to go. The guy on the phone said something about laundry?”

“Sure, man. Right through those doors and to the left,” the nurse replied. “I’d walk you there myself, but…” He held up his unlit cigarette with one hand. 

“No problem. I’ve got it now. Thanks.” Bucky tipped his hat to the nurse and then pocketed the guy’s ID badge that he’d palmed during their exchange. Brad Crews. Brad would probably miss his badge soon, so Bucky needed to get moving. Ducking into the laundry, he rifled through a mound of freshly washed scrubs until he found a set that matched and lifted a white lab coat from the back of a nearby chair. It didn’t matter that the name on the badge was different than the name on the coat. People saw what they wanted to see, and if he looked like he belonged, they would assume he did. He quickly changed and stashed his own clothes behind an empty dryer. As he moved through the hallways, he picked up additional props; a clipboard from a patient’s door, a stethoscope from a nurses’ station, a mask from the medical supply closet which he tied over his nose and mouth. By the time he reached the ICU, he looked the part. Now he had to play it.

The uniformed guard standing outside Steve’s door shifted on his feet and put his hand on the gun holstered to his hip. He eyed the ID badge on Bucky’s lab coat curiously.

Bucky moved past him and pushed open the door. “Just making my rounds and checking patients’ vital signs. I’ll be out in five.” As Bucky expected, the guard didn’t do anything other than close the door behind him. People were predictable.

Steve’s room was small but private, with the hospital bed taking up most of the space. An assortment of tubes and wires crisscrossed Steve’s body, some attached to his arm, others to his chest. Even injured and weak, Steve still managed to dwarf the hospital bed with his large frame. A sudden memory shook Bucky, one of a younger, frailer Steve lying miserably in a similar hospital bed, his mother hovering nearby.

“You never did like hospitals,” Bucky said to himself, perhaps a bit too loudly.

Steve stirred at the sound of his voice and turned his head toward him. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything…” Recognition dawned in his eyes. He made a move to sit up, but Bucky quickly crossed the room and placed a hand on his chest to keep him still.

“Shhh. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I know,” Steve said. “You could have let me drown, but you didn’t. You rescued me.”

Bucky shrugged. “I didn’t want another death on my hands.”

Steve’s earnest blue eyes stared up at Bucky, searching for answers. “No, you chose to save me. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky moved his hand from Steve’s chest, but Steve caught it with his own. It was large and callused and warmer than Bucky expected it to be.

“Yes, you do.”

This time when Bucky pulled away, Steve let him go, but those blue eyes cut through to the truth.

“I don’t remember much, but I remember you. I remember us,” Bucky quietly confessed, “and those memories are all I have. I need to know more.” Bucky looked away, focusing his attention on the steady blip of the heart monitor instead. “I’m not the Asset. I won’t be him anymore, but I have…questions that I hope you can answer.”

“I can’t promise you I’ll have every answer, but I’ll do my best. We have a lot of history together, you and me. I knew you’d remember me eventually.”

Bucky looked back down at Steve. “I remembered you before I remembered myself.”

Steve reached out again for Bucky, but an alarm sounded on his heart monitor when he tried to move.

“I need to leave before Brad realizes I’ve nicked his ID,” Bucky said, taking a step backward toward the door.

“Bucky, wait,” Steve cried, but Bucky shook his head.

“I have to go. I’ll come back when we have a chance to talk without a guard outside the door.”

He slipped out the door and down the hallway just ahead of the nurse who came to check on Steve’s heart monitor.

~*~  
The second time Bucky snuck inside the hospital he was prepared, walking in through the employee’s entrance wearing the same outfit he had worn the day before, badge and all. Again, the guard hardly batted an eye when Bucky pushed past him and swept into Steve’s room in intensive care. 

Steve was awake this time, and visibly brightened when Bucky entered the room. 

“What’s up, doc?” He chuckled at his own joke, which seemed to Bucky like a very Steve thing to do.

“The cost of living, the sky, hopefully not your heart rate,” Bucky said, reaching for the blood pressure cuff. He had no idea how to use it, and didn’t intend to give it a try, but he wanted it in hand if anyone walked into the room unexpectedly.

“I didn’t know if you’d come back, but I hoped you would.” Steve’s warm smile enveloped Bucky like a hug.

Bucky couldn’t help but grin back, even though it was hidden behind his medical mask. “Couldn’t get rid of the guard without causing a scene, so we’ll have to keep our voices down.”

Steve glanced at the closed door. “He’s not very good at his job. I mean the guy in the mask he’s trying to keep out is standing right next to me.”

“Maybe I’m just better at mine. I’ve been doing it for sixty years.”

Steve’s face pinched as a pained expression flickered in his eyes, but he said nothing.

“You’ve never liked hospitals,” Bucky said, changing the subject. “I remember coming with my Ma to visit you once when you were sick. Brought you comic books and a deck of playing cards.”

And just like that, Steve beamed again. “Yeah, Buck, you did. Your visit was the best part of my day. You’d told me to slow down and not get overheated, but I didn’t listen, and wound up having a severe asthma attack.”

“I remember playing cops and robbers in Marty McDonald’s backyard. You always wanted to be a cop. We used twine for holsters and sticks for guns. Marty had a tin badge that he wouldn’t let anyone else touch.” Bucky shook his head and smiled behind his mask. “When you tried to arrest Donald, he shoved you down and you came up swinging. Almost landed one of your punches, too.”

Steve chuckled. “I never liked bullies. Still don’t.”

“There was a puppy, a brown one with floppy ears. Was it mine or yours?”

“Yours. You found him whining behind a trash bin, covered in fleas and scrawny but you fell in love with him. Named him Buster. He followed you everywhere except into my house, because I was allergic. You had to leave him on the front porch.”

“Buster, right.” Bucky scratched at his chin. “Whatever happened to him?”

“Your ma looked after him when you went off to war,” Steve said quietly, “but you never came back. Neither of us came back.”

One of the machines behind Steve’s head beeped loudly. Bucky took that as his cue to leave.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” The hopeful look in Steve’s eyes pulled at a thread in Bucky’s heart.

“Yeah, Steve. Tomorrow.”

~*~  
Word spread that an unidentified man had stolen a hospital ID card and gained entrance to the ICU. Security camera footage showed an average man of average build near the ambulance bay, but never captured a clear shot of his face. None of the interior cameras turned up anything at all. Nevertheless, the hospital increased the security around Steve Rogers’ room and required scanned identification cards to access his floor. Bucky needed to change his strategy and decided to wait a couple of days before trying to see Steve again. 

Three days later, he donned his stolen scrubs and lab coat and studied the perimeter of the hospital, noting the location and angle of each security camera and devising the best approach. He circled the building twice, finally deciding that a side entrance would be a better strategy than going in through the ambulance bay. As he neared the building, the automatic side door slid open and a tall orderly wheeled out a large blond man, who seemed uncomfortable being confined to a wheelchair.

“I can walk, really, I’m fine,” Steve protested.

“It’s protocol, Captain Rogers,” the orderly replied with a bemused grin. “Everyone is wheeled out to meet their ride. Even you.”

Bucky froze in place just on the other side of the parking lot and stared, not daring to move a muscle.

Steve shaded his eyes and scanned the parking lot. “Where is Sam? He said he parked close-“ His words died on his lips the moment he saw Bucky.

“Takes a minute to walk all the way to the back of the parking lot. In the meantime, you can enjoy more of my sparkling personality,” teased the orderly.

“Yeah.” Steve dropped his hand to his lap, but his eyes never left Bucky’s. “Sam Wilson is a good friend. I’m glad he’s taking me back to his townhouse in Georgetown,” he said, a little louder than was necessary.

Bucky blinked. Was that…was Steve _telling him where he was going to be??_

“It’s a nice townhouse. End unit with blue shutters on a cul-de-sac. Pear tree out front.” Steve’s blue eyes stared a hole through Bucky. “I’ll probably take the guest room on the bottom floor.”

“Um, okay,” said the orderly, not quite sure what to do with Steve’s overshare.

Bucky, though, knew a hint when he heard one and gave Steve a slight nod just as Sam Wilson’s Jeep rounded the corner.

~*~

Twilight cast the townhome on the end of the cul-de-sac in near darkness, hiding the ground floor bedroom window from clear view. Bucky had worn dark clothing, a black jacket and a mask that obscured the lower part of his face to help him blend into the shadows. He crept up to the townhouse from the rear, edging silently along the fence line until he was certain nobody was watching. The unlatched ground floor window slid up without a sound, and he quickly slipped inside the dark bedroom. It was small but neat, with a double bed, a TV atop an oak dresser and a closet with levered doors. Voices alerted him to Steve’s approach. He ducked into the closet and pulled the doors as close together as he could before the bedroom door swung open.

“I thought I’d have to argue with you about getting some rest, but nah. Model patient. Who’d have thought? Not me,” quipped Sam as he flipped on the bedside lamp. “Extra blankets are in the closet. You need anything else?”

“No,” Steve replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I think I’ll turn in. Maybe watch a little of the Dodgers game before I go to sleep.”

“The way they’re playing this year, you’ll be out in no time. My grandpa’s senior league players are more exciting,” Sam chuckled as he pulled the bedroom door closed. “See you tomorrow.” 

“Night.” Steve scooted back on the bed until his back rested against the headboard, and he reached for the TV remote, flipping channels until he found the baseball game. “Coast is clear.”

Slowly the closet doors unfolded and Bucky stepped out of the shadows to stand at the foot of the bed. 

Steve looked healthier than he had only a few days earlier. Maybe it was the T-shirt that was two sizes too small or the sleep pants that left little to the imagination, but Bucky caught himself staring. Steve didn’t seem to notice.

“I didn’t know if you’d come or not,” Steve said, his eyes still fixed on the TV. “I thought we were making some progress and then you didn’t show up for three days.”

Bucky shrugged. “I couldn’t risk them seeing you with me. To the FBI, I’m still the Asset.”

Steve cut his eyes over to where Bucky stood, his gaze lingering on the dark mask that covered Bucky’s nose and mouth. A little crease formed between his eyebrows. “We were best friends. We shared everything. There was nothing about you I didn’t know.”

“Until now,” Bucky said, completing Steve’s thought. “I’m not the same Bucky you knew.”

“I’m not the same Steve you knew,” Steve fired back. He gestured down at his muscular physique. “Obviously.” 

“No, Steve, I mean…” Bucky shook his head. “I have blood on my hands. Buckets of it.”

“Do you think mine aren’t stained? Neither of us made it out of the fight unscathed.” Steve lowered the volume on the TV and set the remote control aside. “You’re my friend no matter what. Nothing can change that. Nothing.”

Bucky exhaled slowly. “You don’t know the things I’ve done.”

“I don’t care. You didn’t have a choice.”

Bucky looked away, his eyes focused on the silhouette of the trees just outside the window. “But I still did them.”

“Come here and sit down.” Steve patted the side of the mattress.

Bucky hung back for a moment before giving in to Steve’s wounded look and sinking down onto the other side of the bed.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, and the last thing I want to do is downplay or dismiss the tragedy and horror of it all,” Steve said, twisting around on the bed to face Bucky. “But we can face it together. Side-by-side, like always. Find a way to look it in the eye, make it flinch, and then leave it behind us.”

Bucky desperately wanted to believe that could happen. “I don’t know, Steve.”

“Just tell me you’ll try. For me.” 

Bucky’s eyes dropped to his metal hand. He clenched and unclenched his fingers without even thinking.

Steve followed Bucky’s gaze, exhaling slowly when he understood. Gently, he reached for Bucky’s hand and then raised it to his lips, brushing a soft kiss over the back of Bucky’s hand. “You don’t scare me. You’re my Bucky – all of you - and I meant it when I said I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

A dam inside Bucky’s mind broke and a flood of memories came surging forward. Steve storming in to rescue him from Zola. Steve tending to his wounds afterward. Steve huddled next to him beside a campfire. Steve slipping into his tent, into his bunk, under his blankets. Steve holding him close in the cold night, pressing little kisses to the curve of his neck. Steve’s warm hands caressing him. Steve’s body, open and willing and pliant beneath him.

They were far more than friends. They had been lovers.

Bucky’s eyes widened as he watched Steve press another tender kiss to his knuckles, the same ones he’d tried to use to kill him.

“Oh, God. Steve,” he breathed.

Maybe it was the tone of Bucky’s voice, but when Steve raised his eyes, he knew. They both knew.

“I remembered you because I loved you,” said Bucky.

Steve’s blue eyes brimmed with emotion. “Yeah, you did. And I love you back.”

 _Love. Present tense._ Bucky blinked rapidly, his eyes unseeing.

Steve released Bucky’s hand and brought his own to Bucky’s cheek, cupping the edge of the black mask that covered the lower half of Bucky’s face. “Can I?”

Bucky’s eyes snapped up to meet Steve’s and he nodded. Warm, steady hands unclasped the mask and pulled it away, setting it aside on the bed. Suddenly, he felt vulnerable, exposed, unsure of what to say or even where to look.

The pad of Steve’s thumb brushed across Bucky’s lower lip as he cupped Bucky’s cheek again. “I knew in my heart you’d remember. What we had – what we have - is too strong to forget.”

“I tried to kill you,” whispered Bucky.

“But you didn’t. You remembered me. You remembered us.”

Bucky closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against Steve’s palm, letting the warmth of the gentle touch wash over him. It had been so long since anyone had touched him that he’d forgotten how powerful it could be.

“You still love me.” It was a statement rather than a question, because Bucky already knew the answer.

“Yes. All of you. Always.” Steve’s voice broke ever so slightly when he spoke, and Bucky couldn’t help himself.

He opened his eyes and let the tears fall. They rolled down his cheeks in rivulets until Steve leaned in to kiss them away, first one cheek and then the other. When Steve’s soft lips brushed across his own, tender and warm and gentle, Bucky melted, parting his lips and opening himself up to whatever Steve would give him. The kiss deepened. Silky tongues and molten lips and a flash of something stronger that flickered in Bucky’s chest.

Steve pulled back after a moment, breathless, and rested his forehead against Bucky’s. “I hope that was okay with you. I couldn’t help myself. It’s been so long…”

“Since the war,” Bucky said quietly. “The night before I fell from the train.”

“Yeah.” Steve leaned back far enough to look Bucky in the eyes. “The worst day of my life. When you died, part of me died, too. I never forgave myself for letting you fall.”

“And then I showed up and tried to kill you. Three times.” Bucky managed a little smile. “Paybacks?”

Steve huffed out a surprised laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Have I told you how much I’ve missed you?”

“Yes, but I like hearing it.”

Steve’s smiled like Bucky was the most precious thing on earth, and stroked his cheek again with his thumb. “When’s the last time you ate? There’s pizza in the kitchen, nearly an entire pie. I’ll run and get it.”

Before Bucky could respond, Steve was off the bed and darting out the door toward the kitchen. Bucky stared after him, his mind still reeling in a thousand different directions. Steve loved him, but he was a wanted criminal, a wounded soul, a walking disaster who didn’t deserve to be loved. What kind of life could they have? Captain America couldn’t have the Winter Soldier as a boyfriend, even if he was no longer the Asset. It couldn’t work. He had to get out. Now.

He rose from the bed, wiped the moisture from his eyes and climbed back out the open window. If he ran, he could make it to the other side of the neighborhood before Steve even knew he was gone. The first step was the hardest. It broke his heart and twisted his guts to leave, but it was for the best. He broke into a slow jog, intending to reach the treeline and then run parallel to the houses, but before he got there, he heard footsteps behind him.

“Bucky!”

He whirled around to find Steve right behind him, barefoot and furious. “I’m not letting you leave!” Steve grabbed his jacket and yanked him hard, which threw Bucky off-balance.

“I don’t deserve you,” Bucky said as he stumbled forward. “I’m broken and I don’t know if I’ll ever be whole again.”

“You deserve to have some sense jerked into you,” Steve growled, stepping up so they were nose-to-nose. “I love you, and if you run again, I will chase you down and keep repeating it until you finally believe it. Stop being hardheaded and come back to the house. Take a shower, eat some pizza, sleep in a real bed. Sam has enough breakfast food to feed an army…or at least two supersoldiers.”

Bucky’s eyes grew wide. “Wait, what? Sam _knows_ about me?”

“I might have told him,” Steve sheepishly admitted. “When you didn’t come back to the ICU the next day, I was miserable. He asked me who had peed in my Jell-O and I told him it was you.”

“And you think _I’m_ the one who needs some sense jerked into him.” Bucky arched an eyebrow and looked down at Steve’s hands that still clutched at his jacket.

“He’s got my back. He’s my best friend.”

“I thought I was your best friend.”

Steve grinned, tilted his head and gave Bucky a slow, heated kiss. “You’re so much more than that.”

Bucky sighed and looked Steve in the eyes. “You’re not going to let me go, are you?”

“No. If you run, I will chase you to the ends of the earth and bring you back, so save us both the trouble and just stay,” Steve said with a determined tone. “I’m in love, but I’m not stupid. I know it will be a long road to travel, and I know it won’t be easy, but there’s nobody else I want by my side. The end of my line is you.” 

It was useless to argue with Steve. It always had been, Bucky realized. He nodded and covered both of Steve’s hands that were fisted in his jacket with his own. “Okay. No more running, unless it’s with you. And pizza does sound good.”

Steve’s smile was brighter than the moon overhead. “I’ll warm it up while you take a shower. You smell like a horse.”

“Gee, thanks.” Bucky grinned and leaned in to drop a kiss to Steve’s lips. “The end of my line is you, too.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ART] The End of My Line is You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18961678) by [Jaiden_S](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaiden_S/pseuds/Jaiden_S), [Kangofu_CB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB)




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